The need to obtain living tissue for transplantation to portions of a human body has been recognized for many years. This has been particularly true with respect to the treatment of severe burns where the burned or damaged tissue had to be replaced by living tissue in order to permit the individual to properly recover. More recently it has been determined that deficient or defective gingival tissue can be replaced by tissue grafts that are taken from the mouth of the patient.
In the past there have been numerous cutting instruments that have been proposed for both medical and non-medical uses. Some of the early examples of such instruments are presented in U.S. Pat. No. 435,632, British Patent Number 605,850 and Swiss Patent Number 145,928. However, all of these patents disclose cutting instruments that have handles or other portions thereof that make them unsuitable for practical medical cutting use.
Other U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,688,407; 3,934,591 and 4,038,986 do disclose cutting instruments that are suitable for general medical use. However, none of the inventions disclosed in these patents enable the easy cutting of tissue of a precise width and depth without a great deal of skill on the part of the user of the instrument. Moreover, such inventions may require adjustments prior to their use and/or have blade portions thereof that are not readily reusable or resharpenable due to the fact that they cannot withstand certain types of sterilization.
This invention provides a simple medical cutting instrument that eliminates or greatly reduces the problems associated with the other cutting instruments set forth above. Moreover, the medical cutting instrument described herein is particularly useful for rapidly obtaining tissue that can be used for grafting and the like that has a particular width and depth.